Last week, someone gave us an old dog house. This thing is massive. It's big enough for my 70+ pound lab mix to go in, and still have room for my two-year old to walk around her.
The roof was falling apart, because it was just plywood, but the rest of it is rock solid. It's framed with 2x4s and heavy! We put it up on some cinderblocks in the back yard, and took the roof off.
Here's the plan so far:
Make nest boxes with hinged lids at the sides. We even have some old kitchen cabinets out in the shed we may be able to use the wood from those.
Re-do the roof, making sure to increase the ventilation. We may be able to do this by re-using some old building materials down back by the old shed.
Add a hinged door that opens at floor level on the back for cleaning access.
Put a couple of roosting perches across the middle.
Construct a large run area extending from the sides around the front.
I also want to build a "chicken tractor" pen that I can move around the yard if I want to, or put out in the front yard/side yard.
Hubby has caught the chicken bug BAD, he's been watching youtube videos all day of chicken coop builds, and fancy DIY waterer buckets. We visited the neighbor's chickens yesterday, and he was impressed with their setup, they have a large barn and about 30 chickens of various breeds/varieties. Now he's talking about getting a couple dozen chickens!
I'm like "Slow down honey, let's get going with the smaller coop and ease into it!"
I can't really talk, I've already got a couple plastic totes set up to be brooder areas for chicks. My teenage daughter keeps nabbing my Storey's Raising Chickens book to read it, I think she's getting excited too.
